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Tuntland Calls Defendant Rob Forward

Forward
is a staff attorney with WSI and director of the special investigation
unit. Tuntland established that Forward's
formal training to be an investigator was limited to legal education
seminars.

Forward
was aware Long had been assigned the pre-investigation notification assignment
on an alleged sexual harassment situation and there had been more than one such
situation with Hutchings. Forward
confirmed that Long asked him to come along to interview Hutchings because he
didn't get along with Hutchings and that Bjornson delegated the task to him. Long had a second conversation with he and
Bjornson where he asked if either had them had problems with him tape recording
the interview. Forward indicated that he
did not and also that he did not attend the pre-investigation notification
interview.

Later,
Forward was assigned by Halvorson to do a report regarding the Armstrong
complaint of things missing from his desk.
There were three missing items:
an expense receipt with his employee number; a list of his family
members' social security numbers; and a folder with a Risk Management report on
Brent Edison's termination in 2003. The
other thing that was removed and returned was his journal.

Forward
said Halvorson told him to make a compliance review and make findings as to who
had invaded Armstrong's privacy by going into his desk and taking his
journal. Tuntland asked whether an
employee in a government office has an expectation of privacy. Forward said there's no expectation of
privacy regarding his employer, but there was regarding other employees.

Forward
said Long's name came up because he had written in his Attorney General
whistleblower complaint that he had seen the journal. He said he started the investigation around
the end of October, November 2007. That
it was a separate investigation from Wahlin's, but they worked together.

Tuntland
asked what was so pressing that Wahlin and Forward could not delay their
meeting an extra day so Tuntland could be present while they interviewed
Long. Forward replied it wasn't a fair
question as Tuntland had been dragging his feet in allowing them to interview
Long.

In Long's
allegations of wrongdoing by Blunt and Halvorson, one of the wrongdoers
assigned you to investigate the wrongdoer.
Forward, no, I was focusing on the situation with Armstrong's desk.

Tuntland
established that he had asked Long to tape record that interview and Long did
put a tape recorder on the desk.

Tuntland: How was Armstrong's journal obtained?

Forward: He said Kay Grinsteinner took it, made
copies, and put it back.

Tuntland:
Who made copies?

Forward: I'm not sure.

Tuntland: Why copies?

Forward: Jim indicated he was bothered about negative
comments regarding Jim and also open records concerns.

Tuntland: Was that the secret documents reference?

Forward: He didn't use the "secret
documents" line with me.

Tuntland
established that Forward did not have the journal with him when he interviewed
Jim because Forward said it went to someone else, but Tuntland established the
journal had been made public by Armstrong.

Forward said
Grinsteinner told him she had been looking for an open records violation in the
journal and gave him some vague explanation about audit information being
leaked from the building and she was looking for the possible source of the
leak. He said Grinsteinner's explanation
was that Armstrong talked loudly. She
thought she'd uncovered something at WSI and based on that, she went through
his desk with a flashlight.

Tuntland: Regarding the whistleblower complaint and
Long's allegations that "were too numerous to mention", did you
attempt to get that document from Cynthia Feland?

Forward: There was no reason to, there was nothing
there regarding Armstrong's allegations.

Tuntland: You weren't assigned to investigate Jim's
allegations of wrongdoing at WSI, right?

Forward: No.

Tuntland: Were you ever assigned to investigate
allegations of wrongdoing Jim made within WSI?

Forward: No.

Armstrong
cross-examines Rob Forward. Armstrong
established that Grinsteinner and Long told Forward that they Kay had taken the
journal from Mark Armstrong's desk.
Forward said Kay would not give him specifics other than it was a
violation of open records law and some leak.
The defense attorney then presented Forward's report of 11-07-07, which
Long had signed stating that Grinsteinner has "unfettered access to all
documents and files".

Armstrong: He told you Kay Grinsteinner found the
journal in Mark Armstrong's office?

Forward: Yes.

Armstrong: Quinn testified that Long told him he had
taken it out of the drawer. Does that
surprise you?

Forward: No. I
think the two were trying to justify why they were in that office. If Jim had been the one, he wouldn't have the
audit charter argument. It was a weak
argument versus no argument.

Attorney
Armstrong presented an email sent from Forward to BCI's Quinn 11-06-07 wanting
to know why Tuntland would not allow them to interview Long and confirming that
WSI was handling the investigation.
Quinn had no problem with that and Quinn was invited to sit in on the
interview but was not interested.

Forward
testified that he had witnessed interactions between Long and Peltz, that they
were sophmoric, and that he had witnessed a May 7th meeting between Halvorson
and Long indicating that their interaction had to be cleaned up. He said Long was interested in who had
complained, that Long thought Denise Bachler had, but Halvorson didn't
say.

Forward
said when he gave permission for Long to record Hutchings, he didn't understand
it would be Nallie and Hutchings, the only two African-Americans in the building.

Regarding
the news conference announcing Blunt's charges from States Attorney Richard
Riha, he noted Joel Heitkamp and two other democratic legislators were
present.

After
Long was put on paid leave, Forward took over the supervision of Billie Peltz
and HR. He said his relationship with
Billie was good, but her relationship with management was not good. He'd received complaints of lack of customer
service, that she was not returning phone calls, and also had problems because
of the perceived inappropriate relationship.

Long's
attorney Tom Tuntland again questioned Rob Forward. Tuntland asked whether Human Resources was
understaffed. Forward didn't know and
Tuntland asked if Forward had asked Billie if she needed help to return
calls. He said no, he talked with her
about making herself more accessible, to get off the 4th floor and talk with
various departments. He said he'd also
received a complaint from a claims director who repeatedly had called Peltz and
went to see her in her office. She was
on the cell phone, supposedly with Jim Long.

Forward
talked about what he called "The Ohio Bunch" and how he avoided the
executives while they were in place. The
Ohio Bunch was Blunt and anyone he hired at that time, be they from Ohio or not.

Tuntland: Dick Riha is a republican, isn't he?

Forward: I don't know.

Tuntland: Cynthia Feland is a republican?

Forward: I thought she was a democrat.

Tuntland: You said Kay concocted a reason for being in
Armstrong's office?

Forward: No, I said she concocted an idea about the
leak of information.

Tuntland
established that Forward is an attorney and has a canon of ethics for lawyers,
but that Forward was not aware until this trial of a canon of ethics for
auditors. Tuntland showed Forward the language
in the internal audit charter that said an internal auditor shall remain
independent of any influence inside the organization and also that an internal
audit manager would have full access to all property and personnel. Tuntland established that as an attorney,
Forward has a job description at WSI, but WSI was not free to tell him to
disregard his canon of ethics. Forward
seemed surprised at reading those guidelines.

When
asked if Forward had called Cynthia Feland to determine whether she had instituted
an investigation of allegations inside Long's manifesto, Forward said he wasn't
sure but said they had played phone tag.
Tuntland established that after Forward and Wahlin's interview of Long,
he asked Long to shut off his tape recorder, then proceeded to cut down Feland
and that Forward didn't like Feland.

Mitch
Armstrong then took over questioning. He
asked whether the language in the internal audit charter changed Forward's
opinion of her after-hours search.
Forward said, not at all, that paragraph was pretty broad, and taken to
logical ends she could do alot. "If
it's so appropriate, why not go into the office in broad daylight in front of
Armstrong?"

Armstrong: Here's the part Tuntland didn't show to the
jury. "If an IAM suspects
fraudulent activity, they are to notify board management and the audit
committee." Did Grinsteinner or
Long say they notified management before they did it?

Forward: Kay said the internal auditor is unique and
special and she didn't have to do that.

Tom
Tuntland then took over questioning.

Tuntland: It says there upon discovery of potential
fraud issues, so she must discover it first, right?

Forward: Yes.

Mitch
Armstrong had the last word.

Armstrong: Did Kay say she took the journal to the board
or the CEO?

Forward: No.
She said she copied it and put it back in the desk and she gave a copy
to Jim Long.

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About Me

Sue Wilson tells important stories which move politicians to act. She is the Emmy winning director of the media reform documentary "Broadcast Blues" and editor of SueWilsonReports.com.
Broadcast Blues sets its sights on media policy, and www.SueWilsonReports.com turns a critical eye on the media itself.
She recently formed an activist site, http://www.MediaActionCenter.net